“The fact that I was going to be the first American woman to go into space carried huge expectations along with it.”
When Sally Ride was a young girl growing up in Encino, California, she had two interests: tennis and science. In a move that may have changed the lives of countless girls who came after her, Sally chose not to pursue a promising professional tennis career, and earned her Bachelor of Science in Physics from Stanford instead.
In 1977, Sally responded to a newspaper advertisement for women to join NASA’s space program. Even though Neil Armstrong had walked on the moon almost a decade earlier, and there had been many flights into space since, the world of astronauts was still a man’s game, and there had been no women on any flight in the history of American space exploration.
Because of this, NASA began to specifically advertise to women. Sally was accepted into the program, one of only 6 women, and 35 people overall, selected from the 8000 who had applied. The next year was spent in astronaut training, necessarily demanding both physically and mentally. The trainees learned parachute jumping, water survival, gravity and weightlessness training, radio communications, navigation and flight instruction, amongst other vital skills required in space.
Five years later, in 1983, Sally was selected as a Mission Specialist aboard the Challenger space shuttle, which would be taking its seventh flight.
There was something of a media frenzy, focused almost entirely on her gender and not her abilities or qualifications.
Speaking to reporters before the first shuttle flight, Dr. Ride — chosen in part because she was known for keeping her cool under stress — politely endured a barrage of questions focused on her sex: Would spaceflight affect her reproductive organs? Did she plan to have children? Would she wear a bra or makeup in space? Did she cry on the job? How would she deal with menstruation in space?
The CBS News reporter Diane Sawyer asked her to demonstrate a newly installed privacy curtain around the shuttle’s toilet. On “The Tonight Show,” Johnny Carson joked that the shuttle flight would be delayed because Dr. Ride had to find a purse to match her shoes. – New York Times
Sally spent six days in space, during which time she deployed a satellite using a robotic arm she had helped to design. These achievements went unnoticed by the media, who were still focused on the novelty of a woman in space. “It’s too bad this is such a big deal,” Sally said. “It’s too bad our society isn’t further along.”
She took a second, 8-day flight the next year, then retired after the Challenger explosion in 1986.
The 70s and 80s were a crucial time for the advancement of women in the workforce and the world. Ideas were changing, women were slowly being seen as more capable, more able to handle jobs that were once thought of as male-only. The sciences were one of the last areas to change—and Sally was a big part of that.
After her retirement, she became passionate about teaching the sciences to youth, especially young girls, and wrote six science books as well as starting her own company that provided science programs and materials to schools.
Sally Ride inspired countless women to explore their love of science, to become more adventurous and more far-reaching with their goals. And she did it all her way, with unapologetic directness and honesty.
“She inspired generations of young girls to reach for the stars and later fought tirelessly to help them get there by advocating for a greater focus on science and math in our schools. Sally’s life showed us that there are no limits to what we can achieve.” – Barack Obama